Allow me to rearrange the order of your questions.
I’ve said nothing of the kind. Nowhere in this thread have I said anything like “When MY solution is implemented, Basic Income will blah blah jibber jabber.” I said it will have to follow other socioeconomic changes. I didn’t say they were mine.
I also haven’t said anything about politics or political change - maybe the word slipped in up there somewhere, but I’ve said social/economic change. I view politics as the handmaiden to social and economic forces, not the other way around. (Put more bluntly, I don’t really care where the politics go in this vision of a future. Feel free to make up your own answers, but please don’t continue the practice of demanding that I explain and justify them.)
Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere. Unfortunately, we’ve gotten to it far too late in a thread most people will have stopped reading due to length, and while it’s a related topic it’s a fair hijack of the thread topic. An entirely new thread might be in order.
But the short answer is this: Basic Income will be a useful, workable and socially valuable option in an US that has considerably de-grown its economy through a program of sharply reduced consumer spending that reduces both overall employment needs and individual employment demands.
Please - if you would - keep firmly in mind that Basic Income and its variants are NOT my specific goal, or hobbyhorse, or ideal, or anything but one option to replace our sweeping “welfare economy” and accommodate the fact that life-supporting jobs are going to be available to fewer and fewer people. Given the circumstances, I’m perfectly happy to have you argue for any other solution that addresses the problems.
I am interested in Basic Income because it seems to me to be the best option for that future situation. But I’m in no way wedded to it and I’m not going to strenuously argue its pros, cons, structure or tenets.
The 4x8 living space wasn’t my idea, and I still doubt it would be workable, but I at least thought about it. (My first apartment was 10x10 or 10x12 or something like that, after 20 years it’s hard to remember the exact dimensions, so I have some notion of living in small spaces)
Then again, given my current financial situation perhaps I have more incentive to explore ways to downsize my housing costs than you do.
You are allowed to think about other peoples’ ideas without agreeing with those ideas.
But unless I missed an SDMB rule somewhere, I am not *compelled *to discuss other people’s suggestions, especially when I’ve declined to do so and think the discussion is pointless.
I’m not quite sure why you’re so bent out of shape that I won’t take up others’ arguments. I’m in no way preventing you from doing so.
I’m beginning to wonder if anyone in this thread can actually read.
Asking *me *to expound or argue a point I didn’t make and think is irrelevant to the discussion is what’s nonsensical. Argue and expound away with those who *made *the suggestions - be my guest!
We can read fine. We all just made the mistake of assuming you, a person with an interest in a topic vehement enough that they’d follow a thread about the subject for a few days, would have a better argument than “GBI is good because our current system is bad”.
No one is compelling you to participate, it’s just the way you worded your reply made it sound like (to me) like somehow you weren’t allowed to - you are, of course, allowed to join in or not as you’d like.
No response to the direct questions I asked you about your plan in my last post? It’s becoming more clear that you’re not discussing this in good faith.
Again: asking you to respond to a point is not the same thing as asking you to argue in favor of a point. I’d be happy to explain this further if I’m not being clear. Do you not understand the distinction I’m making here (perhaps I’ve worded things poorly), or are you being deliberately evasive?
I don’t really care about the specific implementation of Basic Income under our current situation.
I don’t have any meaningful opinion one way or the other about the details others have raised and are arguing about.
What is it you’re demanding I say here?
ETA: To all three of you - I have my particular area of interest in the notion of Basic Income and I’ve contributed what I think in that respect. I have politely declined to comment on specifics raised by others. I’m really not sure what planet (or high school) you’re hailing from that has the rule that someone participating in a discussion is required to address every point made by others, even when they’ve politely said they have no interest in that part of the discussion. This is hands-down the weirdest “argument” I’ve ever had on Da Dope… and I’ve been here a while.
Here, I’ll make it simple: ask me any question about Basic Income you think I haven’t answered adequately, or outline any point on which I’ve made insufficient comment.
I do wonder what will happen to wages. They might drop. A person whose basic needs are covered will be more willing to undercut prices to get hired, since the drawback to a lower wage is that saving up for the fancy car will take longer, rather than starvation. It may rise if enough people drop out of the labor market. I don’t think many people will drop out of the labor market, because a lot of people do a lot more work than what would be required to earn 12k a year or whatever. Pretty much everyone in college is doing extra work so that they can do better than sustenance level. NFL players don’t retire after their first year, and subsist on interest for the rest of their life. In my opinion, people like to feel accomplished, they like to feel like they are respected, and they like to keep up with the Joneses, and living off a government check forever won’t give any of that.
Right now? I have no idea. As it’s absolutely unworkable in the present situation, you can pick any figure you like and even if it added up to 25% less in aggregate than the current cost of our ‘welfare economy,’ no jurisdiction in the US would approve it, even on a trial basis, because it would be seen as giving money to unworthy recipients. The idea that everyone should have to sweat for their very bread is deeply ingrained in American thinking, even though you can bury that concept under layers and layers of both economic reality and cultural contradiction - e.g., folks over 65 who never worked a day in their lives but get the Social Security they are convinced they deserve/earned, along with what’s nearly the last full-coverage healthcare available here.
In an economy well into a de-growth model, that has come to an understanding that there is neither need for everyone to work nor any realistic opportunity for them to do so, it would be the amount needed for a minimal domicile, food, clothing and some very modest discretionary amount. (This assumes we’ve become a truly civilized nation and have single-payer healthcare for all citizens.) What is that figure in dollars? I don’t know, because we don’t/can’t know the cost of those provisions in a restructured economy.
If want they want is cheaper, they may be willing to undercut more, or they drop out of the workforce.
If people drastically change, my predictions of their behavior will be wrong. Is there a reason to think people will drastically change? At the very least, respect and accomplishment will come from doing something other people value, whether it’s paid work or something cool but unmonetized. With a ubi, I have no doubt that the ratio will tip more towards the unmonetized side, but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing if some people stop flipping burgers to make elaborate art projects or cool YouTube videos or whatever.
Okay. You’re on the right track, as I see it. The problem is that we (collectively - as a society/economy) see it as a permanent tradeoff between maximizing income for maximum ability to acquire/consume, or “sacrificing” your economic potential to achieve something that does not necessarily have a dollar value.
For many reasons, I think that’s one of the greatest tragedies of our time, and as part of the economic shift that we are on the verge of, I believe we should free unneeded “workers” from that pointless dichotomy, both in financial and societal terms.
That is, if someone chooses to live on Basic Income while achieving worthwhile things in art, literature, public good, or even individual self-improvement, it should be a respected option. Not a lifetime of “So, why did you turn down acceptance into UMass’s CompSci program again?”
If we did implement such a system, though, we’d also have to accept that not everyone living on GBI is going to contribute, it also functions as a safety net for the dysfunctional however they arrived at that state. Yes, some people will produce great creative works. Others are going to be alcoholics or drug addicts.
I still think it’s cheaper and less harmful to society to give such dysfunctional people three hots and a cot without actually jailing them. We should, of course, also hold out the offer of rehabilitation as well, but we’re not going to save everyone.
I agree in totality. Basic Income is not meant to be an alternative to “welfare,” it would have to be part of an overall economic and social overhaul that recognizes reality - that some people, just given a place to stand, will contribute beyond all proportion to their “cost.” And that some people, no matter how much support they are given, will never contribute anything beyond tending to basic hygiene before going out in public. And that some third group will go, “Free ride! Yay!” and fail to even attempt to contribute.
All of which gets them off the playing field of scrambling for increasingly nonexistent jobs, ruining what their lives could be to try and “compete” and “win” in the American Dream Sweepstakes, and generally costing the rest of us more than their expended efforts are worth.